Location: Fort Benning, Muscogee County, Georgia
Age: 20
Year: 1941
Pvt. Albert H. King, 20, was killed by military police officer Robert Lummus at Fort Benning in Muscogee County, Georgia.
King was accused of disorderly conduct during a bus trip from Columbus back to Fort Benning military base.
Lummus entered the bus and attempted to apprehend King, who initially escaped, but was subsequently spotted by Lummus.
Lummus shot King multiple times, alleging self-defense, and was cleared of wrongdoing in military proceedings.
The case was followed closely by William Hastie, then civilian aide to Secretary of War Henry Stimson. Hastie objected to the Army’s disposition of the case.
CRRJ Associate Director Professor Rose Zoltek-Jick worked with King’s relatives and lawyers at Morgan Lewis to successfully argue for the correction of King’s military records so that they more accurately account for his death.
In November 2022, more than 80 years after King’s death, Army officials corrected the record and King’s death is now listed as “in the line of duty.”
For more information, search CRRJ’s archive.
Read more about King’s death on the Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive
About the Archive
The Burnham-Nobles Digital Archive houses case files and documents for more than 1,000 cases of racial homicides in the Jim Crow South. Co-founded by Melissa Nobles, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Margaret Burnham, CRRJ director and professor of law at Northeastern, these uncovered stories highlight how violence affected lives, defined legal rights and shaped politics between 1930 and 1954.
Recent news on King's case
Private Albert King was killed at Fort Benning, Georgia in 1941. The case was investigated by the journalist Alexa Mills, a former CRRJ student. The King story appears in the Washington Post Magazine.…
An article in today’s New York Times features a case that CRRJ uncovered. The case involved the killing of a soldier in Georgia in 1941. Professor Rose Zoltek-Jick worked with the family, and…
An article published by The Washington Post, Jan. 15, highlights CRRJ’s efforts to reverse findings about the death of Pvt. Albert H. King’s in 1941.